Written by Faye Hardy: @fromfaye_ fayehardy.com
Illustrations by Rhia Cook: @rhiacookmakes
Just bread and cheese - that is all it takes to put a smile on my face. A wedge of sourdough, lavishly buttered with thick flakes of cheddar perching on top. A hunk of focaccia, buoyantly smeared with a fluffy, tenderly tart goat’s cheese. A slice of rye with a shaving of nutty emmental. Just bread and cheese - give it to me how you wish, that is all it takes to put a smile on my face. It is all I yearn for when I am far from home, all I seek comfort in when only food can soothe. It is what led me to the wonder of chipá.
I try, and often fail, to put their perfectness into words. They are golden, speckled with charred chunks of cheese and found within every Argentine panadería, well every good one at least. They oozed a scent that forever lured me, especially when woozy from an afternoon nap. One bite and I would feel held, comforted. Another and I felt entranced. I will admit that I knew very little about what Argentina’s taste buds had to offer. I thought it was nothing more than a steak-eating nation partial to a glass of Malbec, and whilst this is somewhat true, there is so much more than meets the foreign eye. It all begins with chipá, or at least that’s where my story did.
Quite simply, they are the very best of both bread and cheese, a modge podge of the two if you will. They have this delicately chewy crust, a pillow-like softness hidden within and the butteriest of bellies I ever did have the pleasure of biting into. During my Argentinian days, chipá became a daily routine and my time spent there was all the better for it. Sometimes late in the morning with spoonfuls of scrambled egg shovelled in at the same time, often sat in the plaza sipping a mate with one eye winced and always whilst waiting for the asado to cook.
Twelve months later, it was time to return home. Back on British soil and my daily dose became a distant memory, but my love for them only grew stronger. I must make my own, except I didn’t really know where to start. You could say I was ignorant to not have sought a recipe whilst I was there, but I was in my honeymoon phase, besotted and yes, perhaps a little ignorant. Intuition taught me that something similar to a cheese scone was far too heavy, and yet gougères or a cheese choux was not heavy enough. I knew that they called for tapioca flour, which was not troubling at all, yet the particular cheese they demanded was a little more so. I trawled through recipes, attempting to decipher what distinguished an Argentinian chipá from that of Paraguay’s eclectic collection, or better still their pão de queijo sibling I often dunked into bowls of açaí whilst in Brazil. I watched tutorial upon tutorial, begged friends to find me a treasured familial recipe and read every word of what Maricel Presilla had to say. I was exhausted; I was still chipá-less.
Something had to be sacrificed. My pursuit of perfect authenticity, or my greed to satiate both stomach and soul with a nostalgic pleasure. I knew the answer. There was a batch that melted to butter in the oven and a batch that didn’t even make it as far as the oven, but then there was a batch that lit a warm, giddy glow inside of my heart. One bite and I felt held, comforted. Another and I felt entranced.
And so my story comes to an end with a recipe that is an Argentine-British medley of authenticity, because it is Argentina who taught me to fall in love with them and it is Britain whose milk, butter and cheese I use. As far as I am aware, there is no Argentinian blood running through my veins, although there is an abundance of Argentinian-ness in my soul. So this is a recipe that is authentic to no-one other than the one who holds it in their hands, and to no place other than the kitchen in which it is made. For me, authenticity is not who cooks it, it is not identifying the exact hands from whom it descends or replicating a recipe to a precise degree, it is simply being honest in its journey and acknowledging along the way. It was only once I relinquished control of achieving pure authenticity that I achieved anything close to what I remember. This recipe is merely my expression of the many that came before…
A recipe
For 28 chipá, shared and eaten straight from the oven
Although it is a simple recipe - with just a handful of ingredients coming together in not a lot of time at all - I feel it is handy to have a few notes on the ingredients before we tread chipá ground. When it comes to cheese, I like to use a combination of very strong cheddar (Cornish Quartz is a personal favourite), a mellower hard orange cheese and a semi-soft cheese too - an equal measure of all three. But don’t fret if it is only cheddar you wish to use. Next up, tapioca flour. This can sometimes hide under the disguise of tapioca starch and it’s a matter of tapioca flour or don’t bother at all when making this recipe I’m afraid. These chipá also demand only the egg yolk and so I suggest saving the whites to whip up a batch of Jess Elliott Dennison’s amaretti from Lazy Baking, at least that’s what I usually do. My last word is that I love them, and I hope you do too.
Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter
4 egg yolks
280g cheese (90g of each variety)
360g tapioca flour
100ml whole milk
½ tsp of salt
Method:
Preheat your oven to 180c.
Grate your cheeses of choice into a bowl, not worrying if a few chunks escape from the grater and into your mouth. Leave to one side, perhaps out of sight.
Next, take your butter and cut it into chunks, placing them into a large bowl as you go. Using an electric whisk - or, if you so desire, your arm strength alone - beat until smooth and whippable. Add in two of the egg yolks and continue whisking until you can no longer see any streaks. Add in the final two egg yolks and whisk again for two minutes or so, until fully combined.
Into the butter and egg yolk mix, add half of the tapioca flour and all of the cheese. Mix with the back of a spoon until more or less combined. Add in the rest of the flour, together with the salt and milk. Using the spoon again, continue mixing and stirring. Once it starts coming together, it’s time to dive in with your hand, right or left I will let you choose. Squelch it together, drag any stray crumbs from the bottom and knead for a few minutes.
This bit is up to you really, but I like to wash my hands, cleaning them up before they get messy again. Then take a little chunk into your hands (about the size of a golf ball, although I won’t blame you if a tennis sized one sneaks in) and roll gently in between your palms until smooth. Plonk it on a greased baking tray. Continue rolling and plonking until you have used all the dough, leaving an inch or so in between the balls on the tray.
Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, until lightly bronzed on top and fabulously golden with molten cheese when you peek underneath.
Eat straight from the oven, and don’t keep count.
Faye's piece and recipe were originally published in Issue 6 of Potluck, all about authenticity in food. Get your own copy of the magazine here:
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